The price of being SM-like in SUSY

We compute the tuning in supersymmetric models associated with the constraints from collider measurements of the Higgs couplings to fermions and gauge bosons. In supersymmetric models, a CP-even state with SM Higgs couplings mixes with additional, heavier CP-even states, causing deviations in the Higgs couplings from SM values. These deviations are reduced as the heavy states are decoupled with large soft masses, thereby exacerbating the tuning associated with the electroweak scale. This new source of tuning is different from that derived from collider limits on stops, gluinos and Higgsinos. It can be offset with large tan beta in the MSSM, however this compensating effect is limited in the NMSSM with a large Higgs-singlet coupling due to restrictions on large tan beta from electroweak precision tests. We derive a lower bound on this tuning and show that the level of precision of Higgs coupling measurements at the LHC will probe naturalness in the NMSSM at the few-percent level. This is comparable to the tuning derived from superpartner limits in models with a low messenger scale and split families. Instead the significant improvement in sensitivity of Higgs coupling measurements at the ILC will allow naturalness in these models to be constrained at the per-mille level, beyond any tuning derived from direct superpartner limits.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figure

Interview with Father Tim Gottschalk

Oral History Interview with Father Tim Gottschalk.https://scholars.fhsu.edu/ors/1214/thumbnail.jp

Mobile Learning Innovation in Information Literacy Skills Training

The Mobile Information Literacy (MIL) tool is a user-friendly literacy app to help university students hone their information literacy skills through mobile technology

Efforts to improve predictions of urban winter heating anomalies using various climate indices

Meteorologists who work in the energy commodities market continue to investigate ways to enhance predictions of seasonal temperature anomalies using oceanic/atmospheric indices. This study examines the relationship of three climate indices – ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation), PNA (Pacific North American) and NAO (North Atlantic Oscillation) – to heating degree day (HDD) totals accumulated in 11 cities in the Midwest and northeastern United States, to determine which, if any, has predictive power. The data covers the 48-year period between 1951/52 and 1998/99, and focuses on two periods either side of 1 January (i.e. the winter months of October–December and January–April). The index most strongly related to the HDD anomalies during both winter periods was NAO. NAO values were negative for cold (above-average HDD) anomalies occurring prior to and after 1 January, while the NAO values were generally positive during warm (below-average HDD) anomalies. During cold anomalies, the PNA values were generally positive in the three months before 1 January and negative afterwards, indicating that different atmospheric teleconnection patterns cause similar temperature anomalies in these regions. The relationship between the equatorial Pacific sea-surface temperatures (SST) data and temperature anomalies was the weakest. Confidence in these relationships increased when the extreme HDD anomaly years were examined. These results indicated that the relationships of climate indices to HDD anomalies exist and that these would be useful in developing and improving seasonal predictions for business applications

Delinquenz kultursensibel erklären – ein theoretisches Rahmenmodell

Die hohe kulturelle Diversität der Straffälligenpopulation bringt eine ganze Reihe an Herausforderungen für Forschung und Praxis mit sich. Diesen Herausforderungen ist mit gängigen Erklärungsmodellen von Delinquenz jedoch kaum zu begegnen. Einerseits bestehen erhebliche Zweifel an deren allgemeiner Gültigkeit im interkulturellen Kontext, weil sie fast ausschließlich für den euroamerikanischen Raum entwickelt wurden. Andererseits bauen viele der Theorien auf dem Konzept der dynamischen Risikofaktoren auf, welches vage definiert ist. Viele dieser Theorien können Delinquenz kaum erklären, weil sie die zugrunde liegenden psychologischen Mechanismen nur wenig spezifizieren. Mit dem Cultural Agency-Model of Criminal Behavior (CAMCB) schlagen die Autoren ein Rahmenmodell vor, das auf die zugrunde liegenden individuellen psychologischen Mechanismen zielgerichteten Handelns abhebt und dabei systematisch zwischen universellen Komponenten und deren kulturell und individuell gefärbten Ausprägungen differenziert. Im CAMCB wird der Einfluss der kulturellen Sozialisation nicht an eine geografische oder ethnische Herkunft gebunden, sondern an kulturelle „traits“ (z. B. interdependenter Verarbeitungsstil), welche die Verhaltensgenese allgemein beeinflussen. An einem Beispiel wird gezeigt, dass delinquentes Verhalten je nach angenommenem kulturellen Trait unterschiedlich erklärt werden kann, während sich die Situation und die Reaktion nicht unterscheiden müssen. Wesentlich sind: erstens die Identifikation der universellen Verhaltenskomponenten, zweitens die Beschreibung deren kulturell und individuell gefärbter Ausprägungen und drittens die Erklärung von Delinquenz auf der Grundlage dieses Wissens. Dieses stufenweise Vorgehen erscheint nicht nur für die kriminalpsychologische Theorieentwicklung von Bedeutung, sondern auch für die forensische Praxis, bei der für jeden Einzelfall kultursensibel eine individuelle Delinquenztheorie formuliert werden muss.Because offender populations are highly diverse research and practice face many challenges; however, meeting these challenges with common theories of crime is hardly possible. On the one hand, there is reasonable doubt about their cultural equivalence as these theories were mainly formulated for a Euro-American cultural context. On the other hand, most of the theories are based on the concept of dynamic risk factors, which is vaguely defined. Moreover, most theories do not explain criminal behavior as they do not specify the underlying psychological mechanisms. We propose a framework – the Cultural Agency-Model of Criminal Behavior (CAMCB), which depicts the general processes underpinning human beings’ goal-directed behavior. The CAMCB differentiates between universal components of behavior and the way cultural traits shape the content and operation of these components. The influence of cultural socialization on psychological processes is explained without referring to a person’s ethnic background or heritage but by referring to cultural traits (e.g. interdependency), which shape the agency processes in general. By means of example we show that criminal behavior can be explained differently depending on the cultural trait even though the situation and reaction might be the same. It is essential to first identify universal components of a behavioral process, second, describe how cultural traits influence this process and third, explain criminal behavior on the basis of this knowledge. This stepwise approach is not only central for theory development in criminal psychology but also for forensic practice, as practitioners have to formulate an individual theory of crime for every single person in a culture-sensitive manner

Responding to Per.Art's Dis_Sylphide:Six Voices from IFTR's Performance and Disability Working Group

This submission by IFTR's Performance and Disability working group features responses by six participants – voices projected from Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Wales, England and Australia – to Per.Art's production Dis_Sylphide, which was presented on 7 July 2018 at the Cultural Institution Vuk Karadžić as part of IFTR's conference in Belgrade at the invitation of the Performance and Disability working group. Per.Art is an independent theatre company founded in 1999 in Novi Sad, Serbia, by the internationally recognized choreographer and performer Saša Asentić, the company's artistic director. The company brings together people with learning disabilities, artists (theatre, dance and visual arts), special educators, representatives of cultural institutions, philosophers, architects and students to make work. This co-authored submission examines how the production responds to three important dance works of the twentieth century – Mary Wigman's Hexentanz (1928), Pina Bausch's Kontakthof (1978) and Xavier Le Roy's Self Unfinished (1998) – to explore normalizing and normative body concepts in dance theatre and in society, and how they have been migrating over the course of dance histories. The shared experience of witnessing the performance provoked discussion on the migration of dance forms across time and cultures, as well issues of access and (im)mobility, which are especially pertinent to a disability studies context

Information literacy skills on the go

Students’ understanding and integration of information literacy (IL) skills are fundamental to higher education and lifelong learning.  Development and implementation of thirteen mobile lessons application (http://renmil.ca/ ) in the Mobile Information Literacy Tool (MIL) was the result of a unique collaboration between faculty and the library. Lessons demonstrated how to locate, evaluate, and use information effectively. Mixed methods pilot study findings (Hanbidge, Sanderson, & Tin, 2015) informed the Canadian project’s second stage analysis to determine fluency in digital literacy skills and testing of the MIL tool. One hundred and twenty-eight undergraduate Arts students from eight different classes majoring in psychology, social work, English or social development studies participated in the study to determine the effectiveness of using mobile technology to enhance their IL skills.  Preliminary successes and experiences with overcoming the barriers to support anytime, anywhere student mobile information literacy training are discussed and future directions are recommended.&nbsp